Shelter is the 2nd Priority when it comes to understanding Wilderness Survival Skills.
In wilderness survival situations, many people worry too much about finding food, when they should be thinking about finding shelter. A person can live for a month or more without food, although you might get a little uncomfortable. Water is the main concern, but unless you are in the blazing hot desert, you can still live for a couple of days without it. Fire is also very nice and pleasant, and lifts the spirits, but if you have a good shelter, you could do without it. According to Craig Stringham and Peter Lawson authors of "The Ultimate Survival Guide" shelter is second in importance only to a person's attitude when it comes to things that will help you survive if you are lost in the wilderness.
Regarding attitude, Lawson statess that fear and panic are your biggest enemies in any wilderness survival situation. If you can keep your head clear and maintain an attitude of curiosity about your situation, rather than feeling like you are defeted, you will probably do just fine The key is understanding nature, rather than thinking as if it were your enemy.
Let's take a look at shelter. Shelters are really quite easy to build by using the available materials at hand. Shelters do not need to be elaborate, they only need to keep you warm and dry if it should happen to rain. Shelters can be made with just about anything you find in the woods including: dry leaves, sticks, branches, pine boughs and all of these are usually available and they are great for building a temporary shelter.
Debris huts are probably the easiest kind of a shelter to build. The trick is to make it the right size to include everyone. You want to build a debris hut that is big enough so that you can fit in comfortably, but small enough so that there won't be a lot of empty space.The way to start building a debris hut is by making a framework out of larger branches, over which you can then place layers of smaller branches. The ideal situation would be if you could find a tree branch that was about 10 feet long, and a tree that had a branch coming off of it about 3-4 ft. high. You could then place the long branch with one end on the ground and the other end in the crotch of the tree to make your hut with the tree crotch being the entrance to your hut, and the foot of your hut would be where the tree branch touched the ground. The next thing to do is to use smaller branches to lay a framework in the shape of an A on both sides of the tree branch. Now it's time to start putting on large leaves. Use pine boughs, ferns, or whatever is around you. The more insulation the better. Two or 3 feet thick is not unreasonable. If it's going to turn cold (usually at night) you will need plenty of insulation to retain your natural warmth while keeping out the cold.Then you can concentrate on making a fire!
This valuable knowledge on how to use your wilderness survival skills will, hopefully, give you the added confidence you may need so you will remain calm.Panic is the killer here!
